It is now commonplace for women to wear tight fitting one-piece bathing suits and bikinis for purposes of sun bathing and swimming. Unfortunately, swimsuits that are considered quite appropriate for the beach or pool are often considered inappropriate attire away from the beach. Women wishing to leave the beach or pool area for restaurants, shopping establishments, or public streets will usually either change clothes entirely or wear a lightweight outer garment, commonly referred to as a cover-up, over their swimsuits. Carrying a change of clothes or a separate cover-up garment, however, is often inconvenient—especially considering all of the beach or pool necessities that must also be carried, such as beach towels, sunscreen, sunglasses, wallets, books or e-book readers, money, water and sand toys, keys, shoes, an ice chest, snacks, a beach umbrella, radios or digital music players, and cell phones.
It is known to use a modified beach towel as a combination towel and swimsuit cover up. Such combination towels and cover ups have the potential to allow women to have easy access to a cover up whenever they visit the beach or pool. Existing convertible beach towel/cover ups, however, all suffer from significant disadvantages. A number of such known convertible beach towels use straps, ties, or strips of fabric extending from the towel body in order to convert the beach towel to a cover up. Other existing convertible beach towels have integral hoods, use zippers or hook and loop fasteners, or use a towel body having a non-standard (and non-rectangular) shape. These features all tend to increase cost and waste in the manufacturing process, and make the process of converting from a beach towel to a cover up undesirably complicated and time-consuming.
As such, an improved beach towel that can be readily converted into an attractive and comfortable wrap or swimsuit cover-up would be desirable.